马太福音

Another screening of the Italian Film Master Retrospective in Shanghai, a cinematic pilgrimage of Pasolini’s third feature, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW, a very literal visual re-interpretation of the titular gospel from New Testament.

Shot in neo-realismo style, in locations of Barile, Matera and Massafra, the proverbial story of Jesus Christ (Irezoqui) starts with a close-up of a young Mary (Caruso), pregnant after the Immaculate Conception, wordless with a cryptical smile, sets the lofty tone of Pasolini’s biblical indoctrination. It is after all, a faithful transposition of its urtext without embellishments and redaction. Mystic, miraculous happenstances are simply exhibited instead of elaborated (Jesus’ walking on water stunt is where Pasolini is impelled to use some artistic license) and it is Jesus who does most of the talking, or more accurately, preaching, whereas other characters (his 12 apostles included) is reduced to mere ciphers. By casting non-professionals who possess striking physical resemblance of their roles, Pasolini paints the portraiture of distinct visages that are transfixing their close-up gazes directly to viewers’ psyche, and finds a niche to operating the distancing effect that would become one of his trademarks.

Being a member of religious laity, Yours Truly has no credentials to dwell on the subtle discrepancy Pasolini instills through his catechismal edification, but as a human being, the film’s steadfast emphasis on agape, benevolence and compassion is universally reverberating, and Irezoqui’s youthful look, didactic delivery, all contribute to a sensible, emphatic propagation that rings true for all its earnest, wisdom and the essence of a primordial instinct, as if we, humans, as a species, is born to be amenable to those commandments.

Musically, composer Luis Bacalov’s eclectic selection is another wow factor, tailored to the story with impeccable felicity. Traditional negro spiritual “Motherless Child” sung by Odetta is a puissant theme song that rouses frisson and goosebumps every time it is piped up, and Bach’s opuses lend anachronistic cohesion to the ongoing solemn expressions of a dignified, open-faced soul, shimmering with sacrality, humility and resolve.

One side-note, since Pasolini casts his own mother Susanna as the old Mary, wailing over her son’s crucification, an uncanny foreshadowing of his own predecease over a decade later, therefore, the pang of harrowing premonition is difficult to shuck off, there is no rising from the dead for him, tragedy stays, and we mortals are, lamentably, still none the wiser whatsoever.

referential entries: Martin Scorsese’s THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (1986, 6.7/10); Pasolini’s THE HAWKS AND SPARROWS (1966, 7.5/10), MEDEA (1969, 7.8/10).